The echoes as they come

They are coming. Closer, closer, with every moment, every heartbeat, and I can feel my heartbeat, I can feel my heart beat, beat, beat, beat, it's beating too fast, it's echoing off the walls, and I wonder if they can hear it. They can hear so much that sometimes I wonder if they can hear thought. Can they hear my fear? I have covered my mouth; I have shut it tight with a sewing needle and fine wire. I must muffle my accidental screams, my cries for help, my own voice, because it betrays me. Especially when I sleep. I hear it all night long, it invades even my dreams, and I have to silence it, because they are coming and they can hear it.

But do they hear my thoughts screaming? How do I deaden myself, how do I make my thoughts silent, how do I stop the thoughts? Even sleep doesn't stop them. Even drugged sleep, even when I tried to anesthetize myself with whiskey and cough syrup and painkillers, even then I knew my heartbeat was too fast, I knew my terror was echoing off my skull and it must be leaking out somewhere, my thoughts are too much for one head to hold, ergo, they must be hearing them, Q.E.D., quod erat demonstrandum. I must silence my thoughts. Even if I must mutilate myself, I will survive. I've read the Bible, it is better to live maimed than to die at their hands, better to cast off body parts, better to hurt myself and live than to die in one piece. But I don't know what to cut out to silence them.

I have gotten rid of most things. I am in here, alone, with only a few tools, things I need, things to defend myself, things to hold them off, bits of paper upon which I write this because perhaps if I put my thoughts onto paper they will stay out of my head and thought won't deafen me anymore and it will stop echoing, echoing, I'm sure they can hear the echoes, and it draws them closer, so perhaps if I put the words on paper I can get them out of my mind. Except I wonder if it was the right move, if I should have kept the bed the table the chairs the rugs perhaps it's the empty walls that make everything echo and how can a house be so loud and if I survive this if I buy another house I'm getting wall-to-wall carpeting in the bedrooms because carpet muffles the sound, it stops the echoes.

Oh Jesus why are you punishing me, I thought you brought salvation and I did like you said, I cut out my right eye but it didn't stop them I can still feel them coming and why did my wife betray me? Is this what you meant when you said you brought a sword, when you said a man's foes would be of his own household? My wife was a good woman, Lord, why did you let them take her, why did you make me kill her, why did she come to me and tell me to calm down? I told her I couldn't, that she had to hide with me, that they would take her too, we had to keep ourselves safe, just us against the world, baby, but she got scared and she tried to run and she was going to summon them and that's when I knew they already controlled her. I had to kill her, Jesus, thou shalt not kill but I had to, she knew my location, she was going to tell them, and when I looked at her body afterwards I found the signs, I cut her open and found one inside her, still clicking its spider legs together, some sophisticated metal machine. I was right but it was certainly a bittersweet triumph at best and I wonder if they heard her screams because I could hear the echoing, it didn't stop for days.

I don't know why they're coming I think maybe they're after blood, because I first started to put the pieces together, to get the picture, to get the idea, when I found the body, it was drained, it was dessicated, they're small but they seem to have an enormous appetite. It was that nice man who sells newspapers. I called the authorities I called the cops but they didn't seem too worried and that's when I started wondering if they were in on it, collaborators, traitors, murderers, filth!, if they're attacking us then why aren't the cops doing something there must be something they can do. And I still hear the echoes. How long will her screams echo in this room?

I can hear them coming closer. The clicking is reverberating inside my skull now it's drowning out my own thoughts and it's rather a relief on that front really but I know it's only momentary. They heard me, they heard my fear, my screams, my wife's screams, they smell me there's blood on my hands and they smell that they're like sharks oh my God why didn't that occur to me sooner? But it's too late to clean it all up I think it's pretty much inevitable at this point. I had to kill her, I had no choice, she would have brought them to me but now they smell her blood so I guess it's damned if you do, damned if you don't. Perhaps it's easier this way I'm tired of it I haven't slept in days the echoes have grown so loud that it's not even worth trying, so long everybody, I hear them at the door and it's quite the odd coincidence that I'm running out of paper right here, isn't it? I hear the clicking, louder, against the wood of the door, like metal termites, chewing, sawing, cutting, and it echoes, it echoes, and it's a matter of moments now.

New Haven — Police spoke today about the deaths of Philip and Ann-Marie Hart, husband and wife, who were apparently murdered in strange circumstances in their own home. According to investigators, Ann-Marie was stabbed to death and severely mutilated afterwards. Philip's body was missing its right eye and his mouth was sewn shut with metal wire, injuries that investigators say he received before his death. He was holding an unidentified metal object in his right hand. In the most bizarre twist, his body was completely drained of blood, though police as yet have not come up with any possible explanation for how it might have been done.